Maximum Maximal Retirement
by Prander
Summary: Things have not gone well for the ol' Maximal's in todays world. Thanks for the feedback and reviews and please check out my profile or forum for a personal thank you. :)


"Gather around everybody. We'll stop at the food court half way through for lunch and any one who chooses to do so may stop at the gift shop afterwords." The Zoo tour guide smiled at the group of teens as they sauntered up in a loose group, lugging backpacks and popping gum.

"Shall we begin? First off, right over here, we have the silver-back gorilla. As you can see he is very powerfully built and can lift up to four hundred pounds with both arms." She smoothly switched into presentation mode as everyone followed her.

"I'm telling you, I'm Optimus Primal!"

"Oh yes, this mature silver-back male was quite popular in the media as the first speaking animal our zoo had ever seen. But quite amazingly several other different animals adopted his language and for some time they were toured all over the world. It was some years before we brought them all back here."

"Doesn't he like sing or something?" A bored teen drawled.

"Get away from my cage, punk-ass!"

"Over here we have a male cheetah. Cheetahs can reach a speed of seventy five miles per hour on land. Although..." She added with a chuckle as she turned her back on the cage.

"Our Cheetah has slowed down a little in his old age. But we keep him here in safety and comfort." She added happily.

"Give me a twinkie or go away." Cheetor wheezed from his pallet.

"In this cage is the rare African rhino. One of the few in captivity but he is well protected here."

"What happened to his horn?" Another teen asked, holding up her cell phone for a picture.

"For safety reasons, and of course to discourage any illegal activity, we humanely removed his horn. It's on display in the zoo lobby next to the gift shop as a matter of fact. If you will all follow me, we'll continue the tour."

She walked down a few more feet to another huge cage like the one that housed Optimus Primal.

"And here is the main attraction. At first he was believed to be an actual living dinosaur, but further tests have shown he is a rare mutation of the gecko, a small lizard found throughout the world."

"I am not a lizard, you wretched female! Release me!" Dinobot snarled.

"You mean like the commercial? Why isn't he green?" A teen girl with a nose piercing smirked.

"Silence, freak!" Dinobot roared but the tour guide just chuckled.

"That's our Dinobot. His bark is worse than his bite. He likes to scare people but deep down he's just a big old lump of sugar." The tour guide smiled warmly.

"I think he's cute!" Another girl giggled.

"This is an outrage!" Dinobot howled and all the teens laughed.

The tour guide's voice trailed away as she continued on, the teenagers following her through an arch decorated like ancient stone work, leaving the special area where the Maximals had been housed as a group in their own set of cages. Set in the four corners of the room and separated by decorative stone paths, Optimus cage was next to Rhinox who was across from Dinobot who was next to Cheetor. Their individual cages were behind purple velvet safety ropes with small plagues discussing each one of them as the Lion King soundtrack played low in the background.

Optimus Primal watched the tour move on, gripping his bars with his thick paws. He sighed and dropped his head against the thick steel.

"This is humiliating. Why don't they _listen_ to me?!"

Rhinox sighed and heaved himself up on his plastic sheets.

"Well you know when you scream something ten thousand times, people have a tendency not to hear it anymore."

"Gee thanks, Ghandi." Optimus sneered at the old rhino who was once his second in command.

Dinobot was pacing back and forth in his cage, eyeing the bars and muttering to himself. He glared across the walkway at the other Maximals.

"It is dishonorable to be held here against our will! We should break out immediately!"

"Be my guest." Rhinox sighed, trundling up to his own bars on four heavy legs.

"You know what happened last time." he added, looking into his water bucket.

"Only because you lack the courage to try yourself!"

"Why don't you come over here and say that to my face?" Rhinox growled.

"I shall!" Dinobot roared and leaping forward he seized the bars in his teeth, intending to rend and rip his way through. But his great fangs had long ago been filed into happy little round lumps and his jaws rotated on the bars like a squeak toy, getting him no where. Finally, an automatic relay closed and a harmless current repulsed Dinobot as the bars were electrified.

He tore his head away and shook his numb jaws in the air.

"Theeths fuckinth humanths!" He roared.

Rhinox chuckled, shaking his head.

"See?"

"Leave him alone, Rhinox." Optimus sighed. Cheetor looked up from where he lay and coughed heavily. He had long ago lost his awe of their great leader and since he was directly across from Optimus had to endure most of his complaints and lecturing.

"Leave him alone, yourself." He finally groaned. "You're just mad because his plush toy sells better than yours."

Optimus looked over at his old scout in his own straw filled cage, long gone to seed. He sneered with contempt.

"Shut up, Cheetor. You should talk. Begging the kids for twinkies again, I see. Dignity, thy name is Cheetor."

"Oh, kiss my ass." Cheetor sighed as he struggled up himself, his great belly and double chins weighing him down as he wobbled over to the bars and stared out at his old Maximal comrades.

"There's enough of it to kiss." Optimus teased.

"At least I don't throw _poop _at them!"

"Hey fuck you, kid. That was a one time thing." Optimus shook his bars in anger.

Dinobot shook out his jaws.

"It was disgusting! You missed anyway. I never did know a Prime that could hit the broad side of a barn. I even got some over here in _my_ cage."

"Hey I was just sticking up for your dumb ass. Why don't you gum your bars some more?"

"Why don't _you _go fuck yourself?"

"Calm down, fellas." Rhinox sighed.

"When are they gonna feed us?" Cheetor sighed to himself.

"What's the matter, Cheetor? Late for another heart attack?" Optimus turned back to him.

"Shut uuup." Cheetor whined. "You're just pissed because all they give you is bananas."

"A lot healthier then what you stuff _your_ face with."

Cheetor looked a little panicked, his eyes glazing over. He swallowed hard.

"Well...who the hell told them to keep tossing red meat into my cage? What the hell, man? I'm one of the big cats. I can't help myself!"

"Calm down." Optimus sighed, finally letting go off his bars and sitting back on his straw.

"Game over, man!" Cheetor cried, pawing at his bars weakly with wide eyes.

"I gotta eat it. I gotta eat that shit, man. All of it. They give me so much! I just can't stop!"

"Knock it off, Cheetor. We all know you love stuffing your face."

"I do not!"

"Here's a newsflash, kid. They don't make Twinkies anymore." Optimus grumbled, throwing handfuls of straw in the air with bored manner.

Cheetor suddenly sobered, his jaw dropping open.

"No fuckin' way!" He gasped.

"See? Ya damn glutton." Optimus snarled. "If bananas tasted like red meat you'd probably eat my food too."

"Come on, guys. Knock it off." Rhinox sighed, raising his snout from his water bowl.

"Blow bubbles, old man." Prime barked. "I'm just saying why can't I have a steak? Or a fuckin' hamburger?" He leaned back on one elbow, disgusted and kicking at his bars lazily with one foot.

"Eat your damn bananas and contemplate how you led us into this disgraceful retirement!" Dinobot snarled where he still paced in his cage. Prime glared back at him.

"Jealous? At least they don't toss me rodents at dinner time."

"Unlike _you_, I never complained!" Dinobot snarled.

"Rat-trap sure did." Cheetor chimed in. Dinobot threw his head back and guffawed. Turning, he rustled amongst his straw.

"Now ya did it." Rhinox said in disgust at Cheetor.

Dinobot came up with his most prized possession, the picked clean skull of Rat-trap. Holding it aloft, he stuck his claws into the bottom and waved it in the air like a sock puppet for the others to see.

"My name is Rat-trap!" He clacked the boney jaws together. "I'm a whiny sarcastic fuck who ran his mouth off one to many times. Irony sure does taste good, though! Doesn't it Dinobot?!Ahahahaha!" Dinobot crowed, no longer seeing the others as he lowered his hand and gently caressed his gruesome sock puppet.

"Yesss. We'd eat them all if we could, my precious." He said to it with a low snarl.

"Maaan, that's just weird." Rhinox shook his head. He looked over at Prime.

"I told you that fucker went nuts years ago."

"I betcha Rat-trap wished those teeth had been filed down before they bunked him with Dinobot." Cheetor grinned.

"Why do you think they filed them down in the first place, you moron?" Prime chimed in.

"That's not as bad as what they did to Airazor." Rhinox indicated with a toss of his head. Cheetor and Optimus looked over at Airazor, still sitting on her wooden pedestal in a corner, her hawk form stuffed by a taxidermist into a dramatic pose. Her eyes though, were two wide balls of staring shock.

"I wish they would put that fucking thing in a closet somewhere. Her eyes keep following me around!" Prime growled.

"Man, I told her these humans get real pissed when you try and fly away. Back in the day they wouldn't have caught _me _though." Cheetor bragged.

Prime sneered at him again as he turned back.

"Back in the _day._ Back in the _day_." He mocked from where he lounged. "You stopped trying to run away the moment someone waved a candy bar in the air. What's your speed these days, Cheetor? Turtle?"

"_Fuck you_, Optimus."

"Are we just going to keep coming back to fighting each other?" Rhinox sighed.

"What else is there to do?" Prime looked over at him. "It's your fault we're here!"

"Not this again! It is not!"

"Just had to fuck with our software, huh? A new upgrade, huh? All you did was burn out our ability to Maximize and then didn't have any hands to fix the fucking problem!"

"Oh yeah?" Rhinox's chin jutted out. "And what did _you_ do? Before we had a chance to find a solution you go barreling up to the nearest human like Curious George and start babbling away. Scared the shit out of them, it did. Is it any _wonder _they shot you full of tranq? What did you think that would accomplish? Got us all caught, that's what. You Planet of the Apes fuck wad."

"Screw you, Rhinox! At least they didn't nip off _my _junk and put it on display, you neutered old fart!"

"Leave him alone. All you use your hands for is to throw shit!" Cheetor snapped at Prime.

"Fuck you, kid!"

"Alright let's just stop it!" Rhinox cried. "If we keep this up, they'll do to us what they did to Silverbolt when they couldn't figure out what kind of animal he was."

That sobered all three of them and they shuddered involuntarily. Still, Optimus Primal was on a roll and his eye caught Dinobot still muttering to himself.

"A least a true Maximal would never eat a comrade!" He called out. "I sure made a mistake accepting you into our ranks!" Prime shouted at him.

This brought Dinobot out of his mania and his head snapped up.

"Be silent, poop-slinger!" He flipped Rat-traps skull over his shoulder.

Prime jumped to his feet.

"Poop-slinger is it? Want some more? I'm cookin' up some as we speak!" And he pumped his hips in the air with both fists at Dinobot.

"Miscreant!"

"Vulture!"

"Ape!"

"Cannibal!"

"This is just sad." Rhinox sighed.

"I wish I had left with Tigatron." Cheetor sighed. "He was the smart one."

Optimus sat back down on his straw with a bark of disdain.

"Let me tell ya something about old Tigatron, Cheetor. He thought he was sooo special. That albino asshole. Wouldn't listen to Rhinox and I no matter what we said. Kept going on about the natural order of things but really just wanting that penthouse he was promised. Karma karma karma! I wonder how that's working out for him?"

"What are you talking about?" Cheetor frowned.

Prime sat forward.

"Kid, the Chinese didn't buy Tigertron's white ass because they wanted to 'ooh' and 'ahh' over him. Last I heard they put his dumb ass in a blender and mixed him into a bunch of arthritis medicine."

"You're lying!"

"Am I? They would have done the same to Rhinox. And just be glad they don't have a use for cheetah fat!"

"You _son _a of a _bitch_! Maybe they need a monkey's paw!"

"That's not funny!"

A door slid open and a zoo custodian wheeled out a cart.

"Okay fellas! Dinner time!" He cheerfully called out as the Maximals all fell silent.

Shortly afterwords, the four Maximals, their bowls full, sat brooding in their cages. Rhinox munched away at his thick bales of grass. He paused for a moment as Prime glowered at Cheetor.

"That's right!" Prime called out as Cheetor wolfed down his piles of red meat.

"Nom nom nom, you fat bastard! Can I get a fucking hamburger in here?!" he cried.

Rhinox shook his head as he watched his old leader rant behind his bars.

"You know, have you ever thought that even though the humans know we're speaking, that maybe they don't understand us?"

Prime sighed, slumping down and dejectedly eating another banana.

"Well...they'll understand a baseball made out of shit. Mark my words. Eat your weeds and shut the fuck up." He growled. He looked up over at Dinobot who was gulping down a basket of hamsters.

"Gawd I hate this fucking place!" He cried.

The End.


End file.
